The replacement fertility rate is 2.1 but Korea has a fertility rate of 0.78 and many countries like China are at 1.18. South Korea is the only country that has fertility rate under 1 based on 2020 OECD statistics. According to the 2022 Census Report by Statistics Korea, the total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime — fell to 0.78, losing 0.03 from the previous year to a fresh low since related data was kept track from 1970. Korea’s fertility rate at 4 in the early 1970s plunged to 3.77 in 1974, 2.99 in 1977, and 1.74 in 1984.
South Korea’s total population is expected to fall below the 50 million threshold in 2029 and drop under 30 million in 2076. By 2100, the population will reach just 16.5 million and stop at 1 million in 2,300. The scary estimation is based on the assumption that Koreas’ birthrate recovers to above 1 from 2030.
The UN medium forecast for China’s population in 2100 is 765 million but this estimate assumes that China’s fertility rate recovers from 1.18 to 1.48. If China had a fertility rate of 0.98 for the remainder of the century then China’s population in 2100 would be 488 million.
If China’s fertility rate drops to 1.1 and holds that level then China would end up with a population of about 600 million in 2100. There is currently no reason to believe the UN medium forecast that fertility rates in most developed countries will improve by 20-40% from current levels.
If China follow South Korea’s fertility levels from 2100-2300 then China would have a population of less than 40 million in 2300. If all countries had fertility rates of 1, then world population would be less than 200 million people in 2300. These population projections assume there is no radical life extension technology created and widely deployed.
The Lancet had a projection that world population peaks at about 9.7 billion in 2069 and falls to 8.5 billion in 2100. This forecast assumes that the global fertility rate only drops to 1.7 by 2100. World population could drop to 6.3 to 6.8 billion by 2100, if the low income countries in Africa and Asia get more education and economic development than the UN forecast.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Radical life extension will probably not be affordable, available, or acceptable, to more than 80% of the world’s current population. Those same numbers could not afford a daily caffeinated drink from Starbucks. I would expect that an even smaller percentage will have access to external uterine replicators (artificial wombs) as, frankly, they are going to be expensive and require a lot of medical care and oversight.
Further, an immortal or quasi-immortal portion of the population, that is otherwise as we exist now, is unlikely to ever have a “half-life” of more than 1,000 years, even if some might manage to last much, much longer.
Long lived people are unlikely to have a lot more children. People past a century old that still produced and raised new children would be more of an oddity than a major trend.
And among the younger folk? Even if we had robot nannies better than humans, and external uterine replicators, most families will never resemble “Meet the Duggers.” Although, at some point, if a country could afford it, it is possible they would experiment with crèche children to keep their populations from getting too low. Hello, oh Brave New World.
The ideal population for this planet is probably no more than 1 billion humans as we are now. With increasing levels of automation, there may be no economic imperative for it to be larger.
Even that level will ultimately require offworld resource gathering.
People will do all kinds of odd things with genetic design, to include taking forms we might not consider human.
Ultimately, it may be necessary to keep population numbers up by making copies of existing adult individuals, something which might become eminently doable, depending on how deeply they have replaced their original hardware with synthetics, possibly even to the point of existing primarily as software inside of a VR reality most of the time.
From a Copernican theory standpoint, this could also explain our existences now, at this point, rather than in later times. By which I mean to say, if population levels will eventually rise to trillions across the galaxy, then what are the odds we would exist now, rather than then? If most of those people are copies and continuations of ourselves, it makes perfect sense because, if we did not initially come into existence now, our odds against ever coming into existence become increasingly greater in the future.
Now that’s a downright dystopian future you’re painting …
Could you explain that last paragraph?
In addition to the aforementioned likely soon breakthrough’s in life expectancy/age reversal let’s throw out another wild card (very) on the subject of space colonization. Screw Mars, maybe they will finally unveil one of those reverse engineered hot birds we allegedly have. Like maybe the “USS Curtis Lemay”
Does U. S. Space Force Have Secret Vehicles Reaching Other Stars?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Z8JXKMNfE
Probably bovine excrement but you never know….those tictak/Gofast/Gimbal UFO’s seem to be real enough. If so than the sky is the limit; got my I eye on Teegarden-b only 12.5 LY away:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teegarden%27s_Star_b
The fundamental problem is the standard to raise children discourage people.
The standard is unreasonable, of course.
The tax burden for the welfare state (school, healthcare, etc.) is also too high.
You can not have $10-15K/year/child to finance the school system when the cost to get the same is way lower.
Add to that the indoctrination in schools (not only in the US), taxes to maintain police and criminals, etc.
A population of functional slaves can not reproduce.
You’re over-estimating the value of the average worker.
Sheep and anarchists cannot advance an entrepreneurial, individualist state – and thus help themselves. Driven individualists find prospering in such, easy – if not, move to a region that can be afforded – the range of ‘affordability’ in US, UK, Canada, and Australia, (cheapest housing aligned with highest paying work) with the associated standard of living, is next-to-none (along with the wide range of Libertarians (doomsday preppers (no tax, no regs) -to- pro-infrastructurists (moderate tax-no regs)). If you are a bottom 50%-value (education, skill, and experience) person, and don’t wish to improve/ advance, move to western Europe.
Also: You’re under-estimating the value of infrastructure such as road, air travel, and utility distribution. You’re underestimating the value of basic western education. These cost money and the ‘incremental benefit’ of having your own private property with highly reliable, though mediocre, services, without concern of invasion is the most lucrative in the world. I’m not sure how ‘dumbed down’ you need the system to be before you feel that you can prosper, but the life ‘investment to return’ ratio is the best any civilization has ever had ever.
Humanity is preparing itself for life extension but somewhy there are still few who recognize it.
How it works is a complex mechanism involving education, economic development, urbanization and evolution of social relationships, but in short: deaths drive births. When we live longer and longer, we have fewer children. Also, separate factors may work, e.g. moving to bigger cities (probably “death drive birth” through increasing loneliness which is compensated by more intense urban social life), or the same effect achieved by internet or any other factors as the society advances. At the same time, people tend to value their own life more, rather than sacrificing it for children. Unfortunately, it hasn’t still lead to wide-scale life extension efforts – people still undervalue their long-term life but shift their current re/productive priorities.
Anyway, life extension is what is going to solve this and make all those extrapolations useless. The most probable real prediction is either stabilization of population or slow growth as we settle in the near space, and all of that until really strong AI (or rather Augmented Intelligence) takes off.
OR aging will be a thing of the past (see other NBF reports)
OR populatoin will decrease because the rate of fertility
Both forecast cannot be true at the same time.
Japan is example of increasing longevity and fertility dropping to reduce population.
The current forecast is for Japan’s population to go to 60-70 million in 2100 with a life expectancy of about 85-90.
In order for 120 million to be alive in 2100 in Japan then people need to live to 140-150. the other way longevity could counter this low fertility is if women could stay fertile up to say 80 and they choose to have children when they were 60-70.
Massive drops in fertility need to massive increases in longevity to counter.
What wrong with Japan’s population being 60-70 million anyway? Your talking about a country with less land area than California and more than 3X times its population. If they ( the Japanese) like being that crowded fine but wouldn’t be surprised if for instance the current “Herbivore men” phenomenon my be a subconscious reaction to feeling crowded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men
Since women no longer get pregnant accidentally, the future belongs to those who are keen to have children (rather than just keen to …). There are quite a lot of them and governmennts plan to make it easier for them to have their wish, so I predict that population decline will end soonish.
Ridiculous projection.
By 2050, >1/4 of children will be born woman-free. There’s already experimental gestation pods and we only need to close the ~20 week gap between what’s already possible in Petri dishes and the earliest premature incubator ages (which will also get much safer once the ~20 week gap is closed).
https://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Coming-of-Woman-Free-G-Artificial-Wombs_Fertility-230109-920.html
As usual, the reactionary Right anti-abortion folks are fighting the last war.
However, the role of women will seriously change once humans don’t have to rely on them to be mothers, and they may not like being conscripted into all the roles men currently occupy.
This is the kind of thing I’d need to see to believe. That said, if the global population of Earth is drastically lower by 2300, what about the possible global populations of other planets with humans? There’s nothing that makes me think we won’t be spreading out in dramatic fashion by that time.
Fertility rate not only affected by socio-economics condition but also affected by genes. In long-term, genes that flow r strategy will be the winner and fertility rate will bounce back. Fertility rate in Japan (almost a homogenous sociaty with very litle immigrants) have been stablized and have signs of climbing back in recent years.
How does this matter when we take projections for AI and robotics into account?
It only matters if technology fails which is unlikely
Bezos & Musk touting hundreds of billions of humans is crazy. In a few more years we will have genetic diversity based upon technological innovation. In other words non human engineered life forms with cybernetic integration.
These human population projections are not unlike many economic projections that fail to grasp technological innovation in the 21st century.
“Current conditions that produce very low birth rates seem unlikely to persist much longer than the conditions in the 1960’s that lead to projections of “The Population Bomb””
“Seems naive to make projections several centuries hence.
The current situation might perfectly be transient.”
I think these two comments are the long and the short of it. If the “Population Explosion” calculations of the ’60’s and ’70’s turned out to be caca (bovine excrement) why should we have anymore faith in the ones now predicting population collapse (imminent/irreversible)? “Cause our current data is so much better”…yeah that’s what they thought back in the day. Humans are notoriously difficult to model; which is probably just as well. Our would be masters have another information about us already.
Current conditions that produce very low birth rates seem unlikely to persist much longer than the conditions in the 1960’s that lead to projections of “The Population Bomb”. Both biotech that produces much greater longevity and AI/Automation that produces much greater wealth will reverse the declines. Or alternatively, chaos and collapse would lead to much greater poverty that would also reverse the declines.
Good! There’s too many people in the world.
How many humans should exist Thomas Malthus? Can I move to mars and leave you nihilists to inherit the earth?
Since you asked the question, how about you answer first.
I have seen various scenarios, including one with 1.3 million billion people, where the sheer waste heat from all the human bodies would make the earth heat to an uncomfortable temp. It would happen in 17.5 doublings of population, about 525 years of exponential growth. Happy now?
In about 5500 years of exponential growth, all the baryon matter in the observable universe would have to consist of human bodies. Happy now?
No one’s asking you to move to mars, just stop breeding like rabbits.
Since you clearly don’t know what “exponential” means there is no need to worry about your projections.
Way too few people. 8 billion is tiny population for advanced civilization.
“Advanced civilization” doesn’t cause the sixth great mass extinction, or turn the earth into a giant toxic waste dump. Or, as a possibility, turn it into a radioactive waste dump, or cause a runaway greenhouse.
8 billion is way too many. More quality, less quantity. If the “advanced civilization” wants to expand, go into outer space.
Very wrong: advanced civilization does NOT depend on sheer numbers of people, as recent technological advances and their impacts have shown.
Extremely wrong: advanced civilization does NOT depend on sheer numbers of people but on technological and scientific advancement.
I didn’t say it depends on numbers/people. I simply think that advanced civilization have both – huge productivity per person(due to ASI and automation – this doesn’t mean people must work, majority don’t need to work).
Current global per capita(nominal) average is around $14K. For me advanced civilization is above $1 000 000 per capita(may be even billions of dollars), at the same time they may have 100 billion+ population, simply by accumulation of new people + biological immortality + colonization of space (new places to live).
“Way too few people. 8 billion is tiny population for advanced civilization.”
Well… maybe 1-2 billion on Earth tops might be more desirable; 1 billion affluent folks in total leaves room for large cities with lots of woodland/Savannah/Jungle etc. natural environment that people seem to appreciate for psychological as well as practical reasons. However if you factor into likely migration into the larger environs of the Solar System (as well as interstellar colonization) than yes 8 billion is a tiny population (in total) for an advanced civilization.
Seems naive to make projections several centuries hence.
The current situation might perfectly be transient. I suspect it’s related to the cost of making a family and raising kids. It’s just too darn expensive nowadays.
The biggest one is housing, the next one education and healthcare. If those change in cost, that changes the population behavior.
The modern world is just inimical to creating a family with kids. But relatively soon a lot of aging people will find the exit door. Nothing against older folks, it’s just a fact.
Unless we find a way to keep people alive for longer, which would also change the long term population trend.
You can’t extrapolate social trends 277 years out!
Only correct answer here.
For the same reason all we have to do in the future is mating since thats all there is to life then. #Robots #nolife #abundance #staypositive
You could easily see an alternative scenario where automation increases wealth to the point where raising kids using artificial wombs and robotic nannies doesn’t impact lifestyle significantly, so there’s a population boom. After all, what’s not to like about having kids if some body/thing else takes care of them when they’re inconvenient, and pregnancy doesn’t alter the woman’s life for 9 months or more?
At least, as anti-natal social movements fade due to just not replacing their members, society IS, eventually, going to be composed of the people who insist on reproducing no matter the barriers thrown in their way. So, arguably, pro-natal policies are inevitably in our future. It’s just a question of how fast the anti-natal movements fade, and how much societal damage we take from the extreme population collapse that happens before that.
This means a lower class of, not necessarily stupid, but very poverty and risk-tolerant people, and an upper class of people who have children, simply because there are no barriers thrown in their way. If propension to fertility is measured by the inverse of the wealth per capita in a household, Elon Musk is bordering sterility.
Au contraire! The genre is called science fiction, this particular story needs to work on plot and character development.
200 million inhabitants and 50 Teslabots per person is Isaac Asimov’s Aurora.
Once the boomers die,
there will be a giant surplus of houses,
price of house will fall,
so young couples can afford it,
then they will have kids.
Now people are too old by the time they can afford kids.
A former boss once told me: If you wait until you “can afford” to have kids, you will never have kids.
I took this advice and have never regretted it. Had 3 by the age of 25.
The best thing is that I’m still young enough to do active things with them now that they are teens.
You are a wise man. Family and grandchildren are what makes life so sweet.
Got that right. I had my first at 50, (Though not due to waiting until I could afford it…) and then, wham, cancer, and he became the only one, though we’d intended to have 2 or 3.
Though, actually, having a teen aged son in your 60’s is a pretty good way to force you to remain active.
Our only hope/s:
1. AGI/ASI, basically we become >1000x more technologically advanced (insane automation tech) than we are now, and we must make this jump quickly, in the next few decades.
2. Aging reversing tech
I believe we will have both of these insane technologies well before 2050, even before 2031, but you never know. Looking at the progress we’re doing in those fields day by day, it seems that we’re on the good, fast path to have them during this decade.
Article from today:
“Researchers unlock the fountain of youth in mice through genetically modified stem cells”
https://interestingengineering.com/health/researchers-unlock-the-fountain-of-youth-in-mice
Its all about income inequality. I would like to have children but I couldnt give them an upbringing as good as i had or better. It would be worse and my upbringing wasnt great. I grew up in a low wage working class single parent home and i am still stuck in this life. Working 2 jobs and living at home at 35 to save and i cant go back to school without crippling debt. You cant have kids unless your wealthy or on welfare. Im not the former and i dont want the latter. There are many just like me.
Or you could move to a rural area. Great people, abundant jobs, training programs, outdoor recreation.
That’s been my experience, at least.
God bless you in your search for a better life.
Honestly man, thats just your take on it, lots of people around the world from all classes are having children, the people in the amazon who dont know what money is too. You will never have kids beceause you decided it without knowing yourself maybe.
As a entrepreneur I can only tell you this, you will never get rich without owning your own business, taking risks(they go wrong time to time) & making debts. Real estate is a way to do it.
I think the world became waaaay to soft, people overthink things all the time.
Have kids, play the lotery, maybe you win. What I’m saying is that when you dont try something, you dont win something. Effort is key.
Thats the difference between us and my grandfathers take on life;
now we cry nowadays, the internet is down and we dont make enough money.
My grandfather who had literally noting when young and made it to the top working and also doing real estate later said this to me once,; you know what’s worth a cry, not having a meal on you plate at the end of the day, and freezing your ass off because there’s no coal to heat the furnace, thats how he grew up and set his mind.
If only the rich had children, there would be no poor people, that’s for sure. You are a man of good sense.